Saudi Arabia's plan to fix its oil 'addiction' won't solve all of its problems alone

An
Indian labourer looks at the construction site of a building in
Riyadh November 16, 2014. India is pressing rich countries in the
Gulf to raise the wages of millions of Indians working there, in
a drive that could secure it billions of dollars in fresh income
but risks pricing some of its citizens out of the market. Picture
taken November 16.Reuters/Faisal Al
Nasser

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However, "there are some problems in the Saudi economy that
the Vision alone may not be able to solve,"
argued Mark Mobius of Franklin Templeton Investments.

In his note, Mobius argues that several aspects of Saudi
Arabia's labor market and the kingdom's fiscal policy present
significant challenges:

For example, the Minister of Labor had to get involved after
people who were working on the King Abdulaziz Airport expansion
project in Jeddah were facing problems getting paid. Workers
burned a number of company buses in protest over nonpayment of
wages. In an effort to control the fiscal deficit, government
ministries have been ordered to cut at least 5% of spending, and
delays in payments to firms have created cash-flow problems for
the companies as well as worker disturbances, in a country where
demonstrations are not allowed. The issue of foreign workers is
an important one as well, since foreign workers in Saudi Arabia
are estimated to represent between 20% to 30% of the entire
population, with Indians and Pakistanis the largest foreign
groups. However, part of the Vision is a “Green Card” system,
which aims to address issues with expatriate workers—so the
government is certainly aware of these problems and trying to
solve at least some of them.

Still, Mobius ended his note on an overall positive
view of the kingdom's future: "It’s our view that Saudi
Arabia holds many interesting opportunities for investors, and if
its expansive vision proves successful, it could cause economic
growth to expand in many different directions—with or without
high-flying oil prices."

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Business Insider's Andy Kiersz put together a map using data from
the US Census Bureau detailing the net births minus
deaths in each metro area for the year between July 1, 2014 and
July 1, 2015, adjusted by the July 2014 population of the metro
area.

Metros with more births than deaths are in blue, and metros
with more deaths than births in red:

A former JP Morgan Securities advisory team with $300 million in
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